Inside Out 229: Famine in Somalia

In northeastern Africa, in the country of Somalia, today 2,000 people will die of famine. Two thousand. And that will happen again tomorrow. And the next day.

By reading this, you have now become part of the 50 percent of Americans who are aware of the famine that, just in the next few months, could take as many as 750 thousand lives in Somalia alone. In total, 13 million people in the region are extremely vulnerable because of the drought.

Are you still with me? And are you angry? Because it’s not drought alone that makes for a famine. Drought is weather made, but famine is man-made. The regions of the peninsula in East Africa known as the Horn of Africa that are now suffering are the same regions where relief agencies were told to evacuate in 2010. Because aid groups are no longer in the area, long-term strategies that could help prevent famine, and short-term strategies that could make an immediate difference---both are out of reach for those who suffer.

Thanks for continuing to read, because there is good work going on . . . and you and I can be part of it.

Though the Christian humanitarian organization World Vision and other aid organizations had to leave the area now hardest hit with the famine, they are working along the borders of those areas, feeding people as they flee the famine. World Vision also continues to work in the surrounding region, helping people in those areas avoid famine with long-term planning. Aid workers help people select crops to plant, learn to rotate those crops, and capture and contain whatever water they can.

Join us for a conversation with Rachel Wolff about short-term and long-term relief efforts for Somalia and the surrounding region. Wolff, the senior director of the news bureau for World Vision, talks about how we can pray and how we can give . . . and how important it is that we tell others about what’s going on in Somalia. Because the more we pray, and the more we tell, the better off the people of Somalia will be.